FROM

Susan Gordon
July 2009

When profit, government machinations, and perverse pleasure are allied, an
independent media is most needed. The organized whining, bolstered by
hunting industry dollars, was a sucker punch to daring journalism (and to
the democracy that cannot flourish without it) - there has not been a
comparable, mainstream media expose of blood sports in the past 34 years.

That journalistic titan with whom this piece began, Walter Cronkite, said,
"The perils of duck hunting are great - especially for the duck."

And that's the way it is...

Will mourning for Walter Cronkite also encompass mourning for the
no-longer-extant professional journalism by the mainstream press -- the
consummate journalism of Cronkite and Edward R. Murrow?

Instead of Cronkite's Vietnam commentary and Murrow's exposes of villains in
high places, we have media as the mouthpiece of corporate power (and
corporate-controlled government). Obligation to the truth and loyalty to
citizens be damned.

Case in point is the mainstream media's cheerleading for every self-serving
pronouncement from state and federal hunting agencies. Despite the fanciful
titles (such as Connecticut's Department of Environmental Protection,
Wildlife Division), these agencies' sole raison d'Ítre is to produce live
targets. No hunting, no game agency salaries.

No matter that hunting creates or exacerbates every situation for which it
is pushed as the only solution.

This bamboozling of the public is financed and orchestrated by the weapons
industry and gun lobby. The only power that the latter actually has is that
ceded to them by fainthearted, servile politicians.

Media scrutiny of this alliance of scoundrels has left the room. Promoting
the dishonorable is not sufficient; the accompanying strategy is to malign
the courageous who take on the hunting industry goliath.

Hence, the Connecticut Post's editorial, "Advocates for deer must use
restraint" (7/24/09), in which attempts to educate the Fairfield
Conservation [sic] Committee by a venerable, 52-year-old animal advocacy
organization was labeled "a disturbing dust-up brought on by the antics of a
group calling itself Friends of Animals [FoA]."

The editorial damns FoA with faint praise: they are "well-intentioned" and
"persuasive as some of their data is"¶" Where then is the journalistic
follow-up on how this persuasive data indicts the dissipated, wobbly
justification for hunting?

With the disappearance of investigative journalism, the lofty job of
informing the public is left to activists. Here then is what the Connecticut
Post should have revealed.

Hunting does not lessen the incidence of Lyme disease, since deer do not
cause Lyme disease. Hunting may actually increase it. Ticks congregate in
higher densities on the remaining deer or they seek alternate hosts.

Deer are not carriers of Lyme disease; the main carrier/transmitter of Lyme
disease is the white-footed mouse (whose populations increase in forest
fragmented by human overdevelopment). Deer, like humans, are simply one of
the host species who provide a blood meal to the ticks.

The ticks can be found on 49 bird and at least 30 mammal species. It is
biological folly to kill deer while inviting birds into our backyards with
feeders.

These alternate hosts have more food and cover after a deer slaughter, and
therefore will increase their numbers -- providing more hosts for ticks.

Increases to white-footed mouse populations directly affect the number of
infected ticks in an area. When deer are killed, the ticks will then feed
mostly on mice, increasing their chances of becoming infected.

Since mice, not deer, are the cause of Lyme transmission, lowering the deer
density does not lessen the incidence of Lyme disease.

By hunting season, most of the ticks have already dropped off the deer to
lay eggs, anyway. And the decrease in deer numbers from a slaughter is
temporary -- there is not a single instance where hunting has not either
increased deer breeding capacity or kept it at high levels. Game agencies
count on this, to create more victims for hunters.

As a sufferer, for 20 years, of chronic Lyme disease, I abrogate, in
perpetuity, any attempt to use myself as justification for hunting.

The Connecticut Post does not stop at blaming deer for a disease exacerbated
by human activities. It also blames deer-car accidents on deer, rather than
laying this at the feet of the responsible species -- again, humans. Aside
from people driving too fast or driving while distracted or drowsy, deer-car
accidents are caused by hunting itself, as terrified animals flee their
killers and run onto roads. Transportation agencies, body shops and auto
insurance companies document that deer-car collisions increase as much as
five times on the first day of the killing season.

In 1975, CBS aired an expose of hunting, "The Guns of Autumn." The backlash,
from every

"Deliverance" aspirant who could string two words together, was taken up by
the NRA's media handmaids. At the time, historian Garry Wills, commenting on
how all but one brave sponsor had pulled their ads, said, "There is
something deeply "¶ pathological about the gunmen's fear that they will be
deprived of their weapons."

Despite the fact that CBS aired, three weeks later, a follow-up about the
controversy that erupted after the expose, giving the killers equal time to
defend their hobby, Michigan hunters sued CBS for defamation. It took five
years for a federal district court to find in favor of CBS (a decision later
affirmed by the 6th District Court of Appeals).

When profit, government machinations, and perverse pleasure are allied, an
independent media is most needed. The organized whining, bolstered by
hunting industry dollars, was a sucker punch to daring journalism (and to
the democracy that cannot flourish without it) -- there has not been a
comparable, mainstream media expose of blood sports in the past 34 years.

That journalistic titan with whom this piece began, Walter Cronkite, said,
"The perils of duck hunting are great -- especially for the duck."

And that's the way it is.

Susan Gordon is a family social worker and board member of the New Jersey
Animal Rights Alliance.

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